In this year, too, was brought in a Bill which became law, preventing clergymen in holy orders from sitting in the House of Commons. This was brought about by the election (this sessions) of the Rev. John Horne Tooke for Old Sarum, a rotten borough, which in 1832 was disfranchised, as it returned two members, and did not have very many more voters. Tooke had been a partizan of Wilkes, and belonged, as we should now term it, to the Radical party, a fact which may probably have had something to do with the introduction of the Bill, as there undoubtedly existed an undercurrent of dissatisfaction, which was called sedition. Doubtless societies of the disaffected existed, and a secret commission, which sat for the purpose of exposing them, reported, on the 27th of April, that an association for seditious purposes had been formed under the title of United Britons, the members whereof were to be admitted by a test. The question of feeding the French prisoners of war again turned up, and as it was not well understood, the _Morning Post_, 1st of September, 1801, thus explains matters: “Much abuse is thrown out against the French Government for not providing for the French prisoners in this country. We do not mean to justify its conduct; but the public should be informed how the question really stands. It is the practice of all civilized nations to feed the prisoners they take. Of course the French prisoners were kept at the expense of the English Government till, a few years ago, reports were circulated of their being starved and ill-treated. The French Government, in hopes of stigmatizing the English Ministry as guilty of such an enormous offence, offered to feed the French prisoners here at its own expense; a proposal,which was readily accepted, as it saved much money to this country; but the French Government has since discontinued its supplies, and thus paid a compliment to our humanity at the expense of our purse. In doing this, however, France has only reverted to the established practice of war, and all the abuse of the Treasury journals for withholding the supplies to the French prisoners, only betrays a gross ignorance of the subject.” Of their number, the _Morning Post_, 16th of October, 1801, says, “The French prisoners in this country at present amount to upwards of 20,000, and they are all effective men, the sick having been sent home from time to time as they fell ill. Of these 20,000 men, nine out of ten are able-bodied seamen; they are the best sailors of France, the most daring and enterprising, who have been mostly employed in privateers and small cruisers.” Some of them had been confined at Portsmouth for eight years!